


Not So Steam Powered

by TheLittleLady



Series: Squeaks [1]
Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-07-24 21:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7523005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLittleLady/pseuds/TheLittleLady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fan of the band is given free reign of the Manor by some quick thinking and generosity on Peter VI's part. Whether or not that turns out to be a good thing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A summary of the beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who's come here previously will know that there's several chapters which were here and aren't anymore. I know what I wanted out of these, but it just wasn't working and was a multi-chapter barrier to what I actually want to write about, so I've canned them :) If I have time I'll re-upload in pieces and try to make a better, shorter lead in. So I've summarised what happens in the story up to the point where I actually start writing in-depth!

I picture Rachel as fairly short, with a roundish face, mid-length brown hair and blue eyes with the shadows to match. She discovers Steam Powered Giraffe via a request from a friend to make an arrangement of one of their songs (not a single prize for guessing which), and grows to adore the band, but is unlikely to see them on stage due to a large body of water (aka she lives in England); how fortunate that they should come and perform in Lincoln so soon! Via the sort of spurious circumstances only available to fan-fiction writers, she prepares for a forthcoming trip to the United States soon after, but finds herself confined to a wheelchair following a cycling accident. By a further set of suspiciously convenient circumstances, Rachel is put briefly in contact with Peter Walter VI (who up until this point she, like the rest of the world, assumed to be a fictional character invented by the Bennetts, along with the rest of the robots), who takes pity on her immobility and begins working on some construction for her upcoming trip.   
Fortunately, Rachel has allowed herself to be filmed on the Interweb dressed up as her fanbot, Squeaks, which Peter utilises for his project...


	2. Prologue

In an otherwise empty patch of space, a comet spun lazily toward a small yellow star; as lazily as anything can move in space, given the right frame of reference. Far away were other stars, but here there was practically nothing, which tells you just about everything you need to know about space.

Sound doesn’t travel in space, which is a shame. If it did, there would have been a loud clunk as the comet collided with a patch of something which looked very much like nothing, and bounced off in another direction, throwing off chunks of ice.

If someone were to look closely at that patch of nothing from just the right angle, firstly they’d be dead (being space and all), but secondly they would have noticed that the patch of nothing looked rather more... dense than the nothing around it. It floated rather more lazily than the comet towards the same star, and so the little dense nothing, much later, was distracted from its path by a little blue planet. It circled the planet, nestling itself into a happy orbit.

Time passed.

 

*****


	3. A summary of the beginning

Days and weeks normally flew by with ernest. For Rachel, time was a rare and precious commodity, and as anyone knows, time is shy. When she didn’t care where it was or what it was doing, time would nervously run past, hoping not to be noticed. But now, America beckoned, and so she watched the clock. Time doesn’t like to be watched. Time almost ground to a halt.

So for the next three weeks, Rachel sat at work and tried desperately to think of everything else, as every passing moment brought her closer to her holiday, and each of those moments stretched longer than the last. The time was made all the more infuriating by the fact that she hardly left the house – she couldn’t get to work, so was stuck at home with her, the computer and the ever-dragging time.

There was still a week to go when a package arrived for her. The box itself was almost unseen under layers of tightly wound tape, and was about the size of a small rucksack, but it was heavy for its size, and gave a metallic rattle when she shook it. Her name and address were written on the top in looping, impeccable penmanship, with a neat little return address in the top left hand corner.

The return address was Walter Manor.

She carried the box on her lap as she wheeled back to her study, reading the address over and over with building excitement. It was a real place. The Walters were a real family, and the robots too! What must be an absolute miracle of Victorian engineering was several thousand miles away... singing songs to keep themselves entertained! As she put the box on her desk and reached for a pair of scissors, she brushed away the potentially more worrying thought that she’d never actually given her address to anyone at Walter Manor.

She sliced through the box slowly and carefully, pondering what was inside. Peter had wanted to build something, hadn’t he? Something she might find useful in America... An electric wheelchair? No, the box was too small. Maybe some kind of microphone. Or, she thought, worrying about his eccentricities, a jetpack, or something.

She gently opened the lid, and saw a golden glint inside the box, curving as it caught the light.

Well, it definitely didn’t look like a jetpack.

She pushed the lid back and looked in at what was mostly scrunched up newspapers, padding for whatever it was inside, the metal piece she’d seen sticking up out of its protective layer.

The papers varied in colour and looked like they had been stuffed into the box in a hurry; some were whitish with bold black ink, others were fading and yellowish, printed in copperplate. Rachel pulled out one of the yellowed paper balls and carefully smoothed it out on the table. The date in the corner was from 1922. She imagined a room somewhere, piled high with newspapers, probably diligently collected every day for a hundred years, and never read, by a series of Peter Walters.

She picked up the piece of metal she’d spotted and lifted it out of the box to the light, pieces of paper falling away from it. It was a pair of brass goggles, not unlike those she saw Bunny wearing on YouTube videos. She turned them over in her hands, puzzled as to why they’d been sent to her, and noticed that the lenses had been painted black; on the inside, she thought she could see a sheen like a display screen, and a searching finger found some kind of cable port on the left lens, and from a hinge next to the port came a microphone which could be rotated to or away from her mouth. Holding the goggles experimentally over her eyes, she found all the light was blocked out, and a strap falling from the goggles caught on her chin as she took them off.

She put the goggles down and fished into the box to see if there was anything else, and her hand closed on something cold and solid. Sure enough, out of the box came another brass object, but this was a glove. She put it on her hand, and flexed her fingers. The glove was made of a soft, black material, but had a kind of brass exoskeleton that made it look like a gauntlet, with a plate of metal for each joint of her fingers. They slid smoothly over one another as her fingers moved; she wiggled her fingers experimentally, and the glove made a soft clinking sound. Taking the glove off and bending one of the fingers, she had a look at the metal hinging. Under the hinge, she spotted a series of small wires, and at the wrist there was another port.

Another search in the box found a second glove, and the wires that she supposed connected to the ensemble. It looked like some kind of virtual reality kit. Did Peter think this was helpful? Had he made a virtual reality steampunk game he wanted her to test? Or were these collectable items, or something?

Perplexed, she emptied the paper out of the box to see if she’d missed something. A memory stick fell out onto the floor, but before she could pick it up she spotted a note scrawled on the inside of the lid, in a different (and decidedly untidier) hand to that which had written her address.

_Skype me when you get this: PeteySix_

She checked the clock; it was late afternoon here, so it would be morning where they were. She opened her laptop, put in the username and called him, picking up the memory stick from the floor.

Almost instantly, a masked face came up on the screen, floppy blonde hair falling around his face.

“Rachel! You got the parcel!”

“Good morning to you too, Peter!” she replied, smiling, “Yes, I got the parcel. Are you going to tell me what the hell it is? Is this a virtual reality game?”

“Better!” he cried, bounding on the balls of his feet in his excitement, “And I’ll show you. Put the stuff on and plug it in and you’ll need to plug the memory stick into your computer and let it load.”

“You’re not going to tell me what I’m doing?”

“You’ll see, you’ll see. Just put it on!”

With Peter’s instructions, and trying to ignore the sight of him bouncing excitedly at the corners of her vision, she plugged the cables into the gloves and the goggles, plugging the other end into her computer while it downloaded whatever was on the memory stick. Eventually, the computer asked her if she wanted to start a program, which under Peter’s fervent encouragement she agreed to.

“OK,” he said, sounding almost giddy with excitement, “Put the goggles on.”

She gave him a suspicious look, and lowered the goggles from their perch on her forehead, tucking the strap to her chin and bringing the mouthpiece to her lips as Peter had explained. Apparently just behind the bulk of the lens goggles there were small speakers pointing back at her ears, through which there began a soft hissing. Everything had gone dark and quiet, her vision cut off entirely by the goggles.

And then there was a soft beep in her ear, and a room came into her sight from the darkness. Soft, bluish light bounced off white walls and a grey tiled floor, and to either side of her were laboratory benches covered erratically with papers, vials, screws, bubbling things, metal parts, floating things, Bunsen burners, and robotic components of every kind. Near her was an entire copper arm, fingers curled elegantly inward. She realised that sounds had began filtering through, bubbling, hissing and piston sounds fitting in with what she could see. She moved her head to look at the arm on the table, and was pleasantly surprised to find her vision moved with her. The arm was long and slender, but she could see small dull patches of copper oxide forming where the metal was most exposed.

“So it’s virtual reality, then?” She said pleasantly. She could hear her own voice coming back at her, but it sounded… slightly tinny.

“Not really, no,” said Peter, and stepped into her field of vision, “virtual reality would be if this image was generated by a computer. But it’s more real than that. I mean, we might be generated by a computer, but that’s a more philosophical question. Hold out your hand.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your hand. Lift it up.”

From where she appeared to be standing, Peter was perhaps smaller than she’d expected. David was tall and lanky, but seemed to avoid towering over others by means of being, in technical terminology, ‘adorkable’. Peter couldn’t have been much shorter than him, and was slight in every direction. His white lab coat looked custom-made, with large black buttons and a Walter Robotics logo beautifully stitched onto a pocket. His hair was blonde and untidy, sticking up out of the straps that held his mask in place. The mask itself was wooden, and looked hastily carved, with small chunks where it had been whittled down. An indentation in the centre was painted black, in the shape of a keyhole. His face was entirely covered, and yet Rachel could feel that he was staring at her intently. From the stories Rachel had always assumed that the mask was thin fabric that Peter could see through, but it was obviously a fairly solid piece of wood. So how could he see her?

She lifted a gloved hand, and started when she saw a hand rise in the field of vision. It was silver, joints gleaming in the light. She wiggled her fingers experimentally, and heard tiny hissing noises as the metallic hand moved with hers. The parts were mostly exposed, and she could see little pistons moving smoothly in exquisite coordination, like shining tendons.

She brought her hand up to her face, turning it over in the light, opening and closing her fingers. It was beautiful. She raised her other hand, and tapped then together gently. The metal hands rang softly.

She looked up at Peter, who stood with a silent pride.

“What is this?” she marvelled.

“We don’t get a huge number of visitors at the Manor,” he explained. “And I am a creator at heart. It just occurred to me that, well, if you needed to be mobile, something like this might help. Especially if you _did_ want to visit the Manor, because you’d struggle to get round in a wheelchair. It’s been a while since I made anything big so, you know,” he shrugged, “I made you a robot.”

Rachel didn’t speak. She couldn’t. She sat, stunned, looking up at Peter through brass goggles, five thousand miles away.

But her gaze followed him as he walked wordlessly to a corner of the room and put his hand on what turned out to be a free standing mirror, and turned it to face her.

The face that looked back at her was so very familiar. It was one that she had painted on herself for a video about a year ago, for which she had practiced meticulously. It took hours to get right.

“You... you made Squeaks?”

Peter lifted his face. She felt that, if she could see it, he would be grinning.

“That’s the fanbot in the video, right? I liked her. I wanted to make her real.”

Rachel turned her head as far as she could to better see the robot in her reflection, but only her head moved. Peter walked over and took her hand.

“Obviously I had to be a little original with the movement. Try leaning forward in your chair.”

She did so, and her head swam a little as the view moved. The robot had moved forward a pace or so.

Peter talked her through her movements, showing her how she could rotate and lean her torso to move where she wanted to go, holding the robot by the hand for support. Shortly, she stood in front of the mirror.

Looking back at her was a small silver robot, with her face and her shape, but the features from her video. The arms were panelled, the torso too, with silver plates to protect the inner workings. The back of the neck was enclosed, but from the front there were thick metal cables, unravelling from the depths of her torso to somewhere inside her chin. Buried in the cables (she lifted the robot’s head to see) there was a little brass voice box, which she had thought would be fitting for a barbershop robot.

The face had been built from plates, carefully welded over more metal cables which formed the skull. She could see the cabling showing through gaps where her teeth should be.

She’d designed the Squeaks makeup with the intent that there shouldn’t be solid metal where her face naturally moved. As such, one steel panel formed her forehead, reaching from her hairline down to her eyes and round either side to just above each ear. The eyebrows were etched in, curving in two thin lines from a crevice near the nose, and from the eyebrows the metal bent in towards her eyes, creating shadows which served as, she noticed with irony, eyeshadow.

Underneath her eyes a second plate stretched over her cheeks, going to points at the outer corner near the eyes, but coming down to her top lip in curves. The plate rose in the middle of the face to meet a narrow strip of metal, bolted on to form a nose.

Her lips were black rubber, to stop her mouth clicking as she talked, and about half the width of her mouth in reality. She’d painted it narrow, to hide as much movement from the expressive smiling corners of her mouth.

In her design, the jaw, chin and bottom lip were a third solid metal piece, hinged under each ear, powered by two pistons which she painstakingly drew over each cheek. She turned Squeaks’ head to the side, where she could see one of the pistons attached to her jaw. She opened and closed her mouth experimentally, and watched with glee as the pistons slid in response.

Looking down, Rachel had found the torso wrapped in what looked like a man’s lab coat, with a belt around the middle to make it a little smaller. It must’ve been white originally, but was stained grey with greasy oil marks.

“Nice outfit,” she remarked, idly brushing the fabric.

“I didn’t really have anything else to hand. She was standing in a corner for a day or so and it felt weird being stared down by... a robot with no clothes on.” Peter trailed off towards the end.

“You know it’s a machine, right? You built it?”

“Yeah, but...” Peter continued making vague gestures, and Rachel smiled and looked briefly back at the mirror.

Squeaks was pretty similar to her figure, but where Rachel definitely had legs, the robot had a single limb which ended in two small wheels, a couple of inches apart. She leaned and turned a couple of times in her seat, and the wheels moved her forward or backward, or worked together to turn her round. It was a slightly weird mechanic, but she guessed it was pretty pointless to give Squeaks legs when Rachel’s didn’t work at the time.

Rachel looked into the robot’s eyes, which were blue, like her own. Looking a little closer, she saw that they were ceramic, painted to look like hers, with two tiny cameras staring back from black pupils. She smiled, but the little robot remained expressionless.

Hearing a noise from the door, Rachel looked to see a tall metal man talking to Peter.

“Peter, I believe I have not seen you in a number of days, and I would appreciate your help with a sandwich blockage in my gears.” The man turned towards Squeaks, and smiled.

“I do apologise,” he continued, “I did not realise you had company. Hello. My name is H-“

“Hatchworth,” Rachel whispered. The bronze man stood in the doorway, moustache and all. His eyes, unlike hers, glowed blue from underneath his bowler hat. She knew, faintly, that the robots’ photoreceptors were somehow linked to their cores. She supposed, if Squeaks was basically just a clever costume, she had no blue matter core.

He smiled appreciatively, “It’s not often that I get to meet a fan, these days. But now we are friends, you may call me Hatchy. But you look familiar. Have we met before?”

Peter stepped over, “Hatchy, this is Rachel. She was in that cover video a little while ago.”

Hatchworth nodded, “That’s familiar. You have a charming bronze friend.”

Rachel, eventually establishing control of her own voice, nodded. “Well, she’s ginger, anyway.”

“Indeed. You are the shiniest human I’ve met.”

“Rachel is sitting at her desk in England. I made her a suit so she could come and see us,” Peter explained.

Rachel had by now trundled over to the pair of them, a little precariously, and held out her metal hand to Hatchworth, who had extended his in greeting. As they went to shake hands, Rachel closed her hand on mid-air, as did Hatchworth, and they made a peculiar exchange of trying to meet grasp, Rachel never quite able to put her hand in the right place.

“Ah,” said Peter, eventually, “I should’ve said – Rachel, you’re under a time delay. Your actions don’t process here immediately. Keep still for a second.”

She froze, hand outstretched, and allowed Hatchworth to put his hand in hers. Sensing the ensuing confusion in rocking motions, he merely held her hand and smiled kindly before opening his grasp and holding his hands together behind his back.

“How does it feel to be a robot?” he asked, tilting his head to one side.

“Dizzy,” Rachel said, truthfully, “I think I’ll need to sign out in a minute. But this is just amazing, Peter, thank you. So I should bring the kit with me to America?”

“Yes, do that. I’ll see what I can do about the motion sickness, but I’m not sure it’ll be a lot. If you want to disconnect, there’s a button on the knuckle of your gloves. Hold that down, and close your eyes, and you should hear a beep when you’ve disconnected safely. Then you can take all the kit off.”

Rachel nodded, and her metal hands moved superfluously in front of her as she felt around her hands for the button. She looked up to Hatchworth and smiled.

“I’m honoured to meet you, Hatchworth, and I guess I’ll see you again if I can use this suit again. If that’s ok.”

“It would be lovely to have you. When you return, I would be delighted to show you around the Manor.”

“I can’t wait. I ...er… I guess I’ll be going. Thanks again, Peter. Squeaks is beautiful.”

Peter and Hatchworth waved pleasantly as Rachel backed into a nearby corner, closed her eyes, and pushed the button. The sounds of the lab around her fell away, and were replaced with the soft hissing of static from before. With a beep, the signal went silent, and Rachel opened her eyes to be greeted by the pitch-black of the goggles.

She lifted them, and blinked in the light of her study, greeted by the soft sound of rain from the window.

 

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so now we've got the outfit for Squeaks; this chapter was a favourite to write!


	4. A wander through the Manor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So you wake up the morning after being given a free ticket to walk around Walter Manor. What ELSE would you do?

The next morning, Rachel drifted into consciousness via the haze of semi-awake dreams she often had while dozing. She’d dreamed she was flying, until she looked down to see that she was actually speeding over the land on one wheel, protruding bizarrely from her waist. Distracted, she crashed into someone’s bedroom, and recognised a grumpy old woman she used to know, who shouted at her to plait her hair before falling asleep and snoring loudly.

When she opened her eyes, still drifting in a pink haze, she was wrapped in her heavy duvet, her husband snorting in his sleep, which explained why the old woman in her dream had such a guttural snore. Rachel prodded him, and his breathing settled into something more gentle.

As she started to piece together the day, Rachel remembered the previous evening; her brief venture into Walter Manor. It had been real, hadn’t it? It was the sort of thing she was likely to conjure up in hopeful dreaming. She rolled over to the clock and fiddled with her nails thoughtfully. She had about half an hour before she needed to be ready for work at her desk. She could try the controls again, just for a few minutes.

She rolled onto her side and sidled into her wheelchair, her arms still smarting a little from the effort. She’d got much better at this over the last few weeks, and her arms had got stronger, but she was glad that she was small, and didn’t weigh a lot more. She was glad the breaks in her legs weren’t too complex, and should heal without too many complications, but she’d started to get a little stir-crazy having not left her home in about 3 weeks. The option of looking around Walter Manor might be a welcome distraction. Rachel wheeled herself quietly to the study, and breathed a small sigh of relief when she saw the brass goggles on the table where she’d left them. Definitely not a dream. She put on all the apparatus as she had done before, still marvelling at the pieces of kit. She’d always loved this sort of beautiful metalwork. She lowered the goggles over her eyes, and listened for the growing noises as the robot awoke in Walter Manor.

The sky was dark, now, and the lab lit from the ceiling by florescent panels, but as she looked around she was slightly surprised to see Peter’s back bent over a lab bench. She coughed politely, and he jumped, spinning around to face her. Being tall and spindly he nearly lost his balance, and grasped at the bench to stop himself toppling. Rachel chuckled despite herself.

“Evening, Peter,” she said, opting for a small wave of her metal hand.

“Hey, Rachel. You scared the life out of me! A little warning next time, perhaps?”

“Sorry. What time is it, by the way? I forgot to check before checking in.”

“Near midnight.” Peter stretched wearily, “Morning for you?”

Rachel nodded, “Nearly time for work. I just thought I’d have a little look around, if that was ok?”

“If it’s only a few minutes, sure. I’d better come with you, though; I’ve only just built Squeaks, if you get her lost down a corridor I’ll be less than amused.”

“Get her lost? How big is the Manor, exactly?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

Peter led her out of the lab into the hallway, keeping an arm ready in case the robot lost balance, but Rachel felt she’d started to get the hang of it a little, even if the visual movements were still making her a bit queasy. The corridors were grey stone, long and winding, branching off at strange angles, all dimly lit by old lanterns on the walls. On closer inspection, Rachel saw that the lights were actually bulbs, hidden in their antique casing. She suspected Peter, or one of his ancestors, must’ve channelled electricity through the place at some point.

“I’m afraid you won’t get to see the robots tonight, if that’s what you were hoping,” Peter said as they walked, “They should all have gone into stasis for the night by now. And I don’t recommend looking in on them, either. It’s like watching a sleeping human. They uh… they don’t like that.”

“That’s a shame. I guess I’ll have to come back another time. During the day.”

“Come as you like. If you’re going to use Squeaks for your show, you ought to get lots of practice manoeuvring her. Just don’t expect something interesting to be happening all the time.”

As he spoke, the corridor opened out, the ceiling gaping up, and Rachel found herself on the balcony of a huge sweeping hallway. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that she had walked through a small, red archway, several more of which stuck haphazardly to the wall. Peter gently steered her left as she trundled towards a grand staircase with red railings curling down its sides.

“I uh... I guess I can’t do stairs yet?” she mused aloud.

“No, not yet,” Peter agreed, “I’ll have to think about that one.”

They walked in silence along the balcony as Rachel looked around. Hanging low from the ceiling was a silver chandelier, with warm flickering lights, but a steely cold blue glow emanated from gaps in its frame. Rachel did a double take when she realised one of the lights hung upside down, but didn’t stop to check further whether the flame was real or not; she suspected ‘real’ was a slighty fuzzy definition, here.

Besides the multitude of doorless rooms, the walls were covered with red-framed paintings, all with eyes following her along the balcony, all of them all the more eerie because very few of the eyes were human. The largest picture was that of a huge, green, startled emu, although from the emus Rachel had seen, startled was probably its permanent expression.

“Who’s the emu?”

“That’s Jeffrey.”

“Who’s Jeffrey.”

“An emu. He was loud.”

As Peter guided Rachel to turn through a nearby arch, she caught a brief glimpse of a ginger cat, which seemed normal until she realised it had more than the normal subscription of eyes.

The corridor he led her down was a disturbing pink, and emitted a soft hum. While the one she had first walked down had been windy and gained branches as they walked, this one was straight, allowing Rachel to see right to the end, far away enough to descend into darkness. There were pictures along here, too, with humans intermingled with more strange creatures like she’d seen in the hall. Rachel turned to look at one of a small, chubby boy wearing a flywheel hat and beaming with lips covered in something blue and sticky.

There were a few rooms on the corridor, which Rachel glanced through as she passed. Most of them were seemingly mundane; lounges, kitchens, some painted vivid colours despite containing nothing at all. Others had strange acronyms over the doorframe, or were full of mechanical equipment or mysterious liquids. From some came clicking or hissing noises, and from one bedroom Rachel distinctly heard someone snore.

Rachel turned to look at the man quietly leading her along, and realised he was limping, very slightly.

“Are you ok?” she asked, “You’re walking funny.”

“So are you, wheely. I’m fine.”

He paused as they turned through an arch into a short, winding passageway which ended in a heavy metal door. Peter walked towards the door, and pressed one of the buttons next to it. He stood, arms folded, and waited.

“Little tip, though, while you’re here. Don’t let the cat sit on your lap.” He rubbed his leg absent-mindedly.

Rachel opened her mouth to comment, but the door slid open with a ping and Peter motioned her into the lift compartment beyond. It was tiny, and Peter had to hunch over to fit in next to her.

“You probably need a bigger lift,” Rachel said, as the doors closed and they started to descend.

“Bigger what?”

“The lift. It’s tiny.”

“The elevator?”

“Lift.”

“Hey, British, it’s an elevator. My lift, my rules.”

The doors opened onto a metal walkway, sided by railings, beyond which was a murderous drop. Rachel rolled out onto the walkway and looked down. She could see the bottom, but only by the aid of huge stadium lights above. She looked up at them, and straight into the face of a 136-foot tall silver giraffe. She squealed and backpedalled, hitting the railing behind her with a clang.

“Woh! Careful, that robot took a lot of work! Don’t need you to drop it down a hole on your first outing.”

“Sorry,” panted Rachel, moving slowly away from the edge. She stared at the giraffe, which stood silently and solemnly in the bright light, its eyes closed as if in slumber. “Is that… is that Delilah?”

“The very same. She’s a lot older than me, but spends most of her time asleep, these days. I thought if you couldn’t see Steam Powered Giraffe today then, well, you might like to see the original steam powered giraffe.”

Rachel grinned, and walked along the walkway, getting a better view of the giraffe. “She’s just huge!”

“Well, yes.”

Rachel’s words reverberated around the huge space, coming back to her in fragments. It seemed to go on for ever. She looked down over the railing, following down Delilah’s neck to her body, her legs hidden in the torso’s shadow, but her feet sticking out underneath. The giant hooves were smooth, beaten from one sheet of metal, and large enough to contain a room in themselves.

The room grew silent as she gazed, and she started to hear noises from other spaces, amplified by the space. What sounded like faraway footsteps, and a gentle breeze, somewhere.

“It’s so quiet here.”

“Yes. I don’t come here too often alone, it’s a little unsettling.” Peter walked over next to Rachel and crossed his arms. “This one time I heard singing coming from underneath the floor. Turns out there was an old robot here I hadn’t found yet. But uh...I’m not allowed to talk about him.”

Rachel wanted to stay and look at the enormous giraffe a little longer but, sitting in her wheelchair, she heard the chime of the school clock nearby. She had to get back for work. She sighed sadly to herself.

“Could you walk me back? I ought to sign off.”

Peter nodded, and took her hand as he walked her into the lift, “Well I hope that’s given you a taste. I ought to get to bed myself.” He went to yawn and stretched, but hit his head on the low ceiling of the lift.

“Yes, thanks. It’s really weird here, you know that?”

“I’m faintly aware. But I grew up here, so, y’know. Seems pretty normal to me.”

They exited the lift and started to walk back towards the lab where Rachel had started. She thought to herself for a moment.

“Do you have anything I could use to keep track of where I am?” she asked, “A map, or a beacon or something? Then I can wonder around without bothering you.”

Peter looked thoughtful, which Rachel considered impressive, seeing as she couldn’t see his face. “No, not really. But I’ll think of something for you for tonight. I’m sure I’ve got something around here.”

Rachel smiled to herself as they traveled back, leaning forward in her wheelchair to keep the robot moving. The motion sickness was getting better, and probably would keep doing so as she got used to moving the robot around. She was sad to go, and sadder still to leave this and log into work of all things, but she could come back. She had to come back.

She bade Peter goodnight in the lab, backing into a corner as he attached a charger lead to the robot, and felt her gloves for the button which disconnected her. The image went dark and quiet, and she reluctantly removed her brass goggles.

 

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of credit here due to the Steam powered Giraffe comic, (steampoweredgiraffe.com/comic/comic/intro-page/) from which I drew the hall and Delilah's room descriptions, and inspiration for whatever else might be down those halls.  
> Walter Manor is weird.  
> Seriously, though, Marshmallow is NOT a lap cat.


	5. How long is a piece of string?

Rachel logged out of her laptop at the end of her work day, and drummed her fingers on the table, staring at the goggles next to her hand. On the one hand, she’d already been to the Manor once today. On the other, she probably ought to do something more useful, like washing the dishes. But then she was tired from a day of work, and Peter had said she should visit often. But she felt like she was intruding...

Rachel shut her eyes and snatched up the goggles, and tried not to feel guilty. It would be daytime now, at the Manor, or at least morning.

She logged into the Squeaks robot, the buzz coming to her ears as the view of the lab lit up her vision. The room was light again, but empty; for the first time, Peter didn’t seem to be around. Rachel rolled forwards gently to see if he was in the room, and heard a soft ticking behind her that was unfamiliar. She turned, and saw mounted on the wall a huge reel of blue thread, about twice the size of her head. A length was trailing off it towards her, and she looked down to see that it was tied around her waist. Rachel moved away experimentally and the thread unwound as she did so. She moved closer again; the reel wound the spare thread back up.

Rachel smiled to herself. A spool of thread on a spring. It wasn’t exactly high-tech, but at least now she could find her way back if she got lost.

She rolled out of the room, and followed the path she’d travelled that morning, headed back towards the hall. The corridor was still dark and quiet, the sound of her trundling wheels soaking into the grey stone walls. It was morning here, now; somehow she’d expected more people to be around.

As she retraced her steps, she came to a fork in the corridor. Had this been here earlier? She didn’t recognise it. She looked down at the thread about her waist and shrugged. Whichever way she went, it probably didn’t matter. She followed the left path.

She kept going down the corridor for a while until a doorway caught her eye, and she realised there hadn’t been any doors along this corridor for a while. This one was just another corridor, but the walls were salmon pink, and sunlight burst in from a window somewhere. She wheeled along it until she reached the end, at which she found the only door she’d seen in the house.

The door was unremarkable; a cheap white vinyl, like in any newish home. The doorknob looked older than the door, strangely; it was dull brass, with decorative curls etched into the plate. Rachel looked up at the letters over the door, written in the same worn brass, with decorative curls coming off the words and swirling around the doorway; given the decoration, the door itself was starkly unimpressive.

HOW.

This was the Hall Of Wires. The only door in the whole of Walter Manor, apparently. Rachel found herself staring at the doorknob, willing herself to open the door.

Funny things, door handles. She vaguely remembered reading something about American households preferring handles over knobs because they were easier for the elderly, while the English preferred knobs because... well, who knew. She couldn’t remember. She put out a hand, which grasped the door clumsily, while her real fingers closed into an awkward fist. With no nervous system, of course, Squeaks had no sense of touch, which would make physical interaction with the world tricky; even more so, coupled with the time delay. She turned the handle, and pushed.

Nothing happened.

She rolled her eyes, turned it back the other way, and opened the door.

She peered into the room, but could only see blackness. Nonetheless, curiosity got the better of her and she moved into the darkness. With a click, everything in her limited vision went red as a light went on somewhere, and then settled into a gentle crimson light by which she could see the HOW.

It was another fairly large room, but different to anything she’d seen so far in the Manor. It was round, the walls plastered and the floor covered by a metal grill you could walk over. Peering through, Rachel could see that floor dropped away under the grill, giving space for a mesh of dark grey wires and flashing lights. A canopy of wires hung from the ceiling, making it look like a metal grey tent.

The grill wasn’t in place over the entire floor; in the centre, there was a smooth round platform, large enough for a man to stand on; which is exactly what he was doing.

She hadn’t noticed the silhouette in the dim light, and panicked instinct made her grab the wheels of her chair to move out of danger, before realising how little that would help here. She froze, staring at the man, who didn’t move. His head was lowered, his face hidden by a black fedora, and his arms hung limp. His knees were bowed out in an awkward plie. Over his shoulder, Rachel saw the glint of metal.

_The Spine!_

His immobility was a little eerie. Rachel trundled carefully around the edge of the room, not taking her eyes off him, but all the while he remained still and silent. She supposed he must be in stasis. She looked down at the floor; her wheels were a little narrower than the grating, and she didn’t quite dare to cross it in case a wheel got stuck. She continued to circle the room until she reached a console, covered in buttons, switches and more blinking lights. There were screens above the console, some showing what looked like video feeds*, some just jumbled streams of text. On one, there was the glowing green face of QWERTY, which smiled blankly at her, then the screen slowly extended towards her until it was inches from her nose. She waved silently, and it winked back. A wire dropped from the ceiling and formed a rudimentary hand in front of the screen, with a finger extended over QWERTY’s mouth: _shh._

Rachel looked up to see more dark grey wires snaking down from their nest in the ceiling towards her. They moved gently and silently, trying not to alarm her. If she wasn’t mistaken, she could’ve sworn they were _looking_ at her. Slowly, two wires wrapped themselves around her upper arms, and lifted her cautiously a little way off the floor, turning her back to the middle of the room as QWERTY swung his monitor round to watch. Beneath her, several wires curled together and stretched out from her, over the grating, to the dormant body in the centre of the room as three close-set cables. As the wires holding her lowered her onto the cables, Rachel realised they were about as wide as her wheels. QWERTY had made a track for her over the metal grating.

Rachel gave QWERTY a cheery thumbs up, and gingerly travelled over the track. Staring down at the floor, she felt the little bubbles of nausea from using the robot for too long. She’d have to leave soon... but she could have a look at The Spine first.

As she got closer, she heard gentle noises coming from the stationary robot. At first they sounded like the gentle breathing of a sleeping man, but when she was close enough she could hear the soft whirring of fans and, somewhere, a gentle tick of clockwork.

She would back away in a minute, she decided. She just wanted to be close enough to get a proper look at the metal man. If she stayed quiet, she wouldn’t disturb him...

She stopped, standing in front of him. He was as tall and spindly as she’d imagined, with strangely long legs and a chest a little broader than his human counterpart. He stood perfectly still; despite his convincing sounds, he wasn’t breathing, and there was no movement to betray that. He stood in a smart black suit, the top buttons undone to reveal the interlacing silver plates which covered his neck, which caught the red light with which QWERTY illuminated the room. From here Rachel couldn’t see his face, hidden under his hat. She bowed very slightly, and leaning forward she tried to look up into his face.

His eyes, thankfully, were closed. Black rubber, or silicone, or whatever it was, formed eyelids which covered his photoreceptors. Rachel was glad Squeaks didn’t have the same glowing eyes; she suspected the light would have woken him. Black lips dropped slightly apart in rest. His face was handsome; chiselled, and gleaming silver. Rachel would struggle to say she didn’t find him attractive. She gazed into his face, heart racing, and noted how similar to David he did look. But he was more... sombre, somehow. His face was a little more stern, his chin prouder, his cheekbones more pronounced; which of course was nonsense, as surely he didn’t _have_ cheekbones.

His eyes flashed green.

Panicked, Rachel started back, and found her vision tilting, and suddenly there was the horrendous crash of a tonne of metal falling against a resonant grill. She found herself staring down at the grating. She must have fallen over backwards over QWERTY’s makeshift railway.

Rachel grimaced. She’d woken up a century-old robot, and now probably broken Squeaks as well. Peter would not be amused.

She heard the metallic slither of wires as they wrapped around her body to pick her back up, as QWERTY spoke; “I’M SORRY SQUEAKS. I WUZ GOING TO CATCH U.”

The room went horizontal again and Rachel found herself back at the edge of the room next to QWERTY’s console, but now The Spine was glaring at her with bright green eyes. Her crossed the gap between them in a few long, heavy strides, his eyes narrowed. The grating tremored slightly under his gait.

“Do you normally sneak into strangers’ rooms and watch them sleep, Squeaks?” he growled, once he had crossed the grating. Rachel gulped; he was a good two inches taller than David.

Heart thumping in her ears, she tried to answer, but her mind had ground to a halt. The Spine hissed steam angrily. She managed a sort of gurgle.

He turned to the screen which had appeared over Rachel’s shoulder. “QWERTY, do you know this robot?”

“NOPE.”

Rachel filed a mental note to smack him later.

“Then why did you call her Squeaks?”

“IT’S STAMP3D ON TEH BACK OF HER HEAD.”

Rachel turned sharply to QWERTY in surprise, “Really?”

From seemingly nowhere, QWERTY produced an array of mirrors**, cunningly arranged to show the back of her own head. Sure enough, the letters were pressed into the metal on the back of the robot’s head. “Peter didn’t mention that,” she muttered, mostly to herself.

“Oh,” The Spine sighed, and visibly relaxed. “A new robot, then. Peter should’ve warned you, don’t bother other robots in stasis.” He stretched, rocking slightly as he rebalanced, “We get cranky.”

“Duly noted. But I’m uh... I’m not a robot.”

The Spine gave her a puzzled smile, and raised a coiled finger, flicking her on the nose with a ping. The sound of her face ringing bounced around the room.

“Are you sure about that?”

Rachel giggled, despite herself. “Sorry, I mean... I should say... The robot’s a virtual reality suit. I’m human. My names Rachel.”

“Oh! I see. So why the robot?”

“I live in England.”

The Spine nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I’m sorry to have woken you. I should probably leave you be...” As she spoke, she looked down at her waist while trying to get hold of her string with a spare hand, but couldn’t find it.

“Sorry, The Spine – can you see a thread tied round my waist?”

He lowered his gaze momentarily, his eyes becoming hidden by his fedora, “there is no thread around your waist, Miss Rachel.”

She looked back towards the door, where she should’ve seen the string reaching between her and the doorway, and didn’t. Rachel cursed under her breath.

“It must’ve snapped when I fell over!” When she looked up at The Spine, she realised that he was gazing at her with an air of faint bemusement.

“Uh... Peter gave me a thing of thread so I could walk around without getting lost. But it must have snapped off and wound itself back up. I’m really sorry to keep bothering you, Spine, but could you walk me back to Peter’s lab?”

The Spine tipped his hat, “It would be my pleasure. Which of the labs would this be?”

Rachel stared blankly back at him. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Can you describe it?”

“It had workbenches,” she said lamely, “and a giant reel of thread...”

The Spine smiled, and held her gaze as he addressed their companion, “Did you see where Squeaks came from, QWERTY?”

“THE RAV LAB. OFF MARKSLEY HALL.”

The Spine nodded, and gestured for Rachel to follow him to the door.

The Spine did not walk slowly. He made his way down the hall in great, heavy strides, and Rachel found herself leaning right forward in her chair to try and keep pace. Eventually, she noticed, her wheels started to make little whirring noises as they struggled to keep speed. The Spine noticed, and slowed to a more leisurely stroll.

“So what’s with the wheels?”

“I can’t use my legs just now.” She was actually slightly grateful; if she’d had to walk she’d probably be out of breath by now.

“Fair enough. And did you pick the name or was that Peter?”

“That was me. I’m a soprano. Y’know... I squeak. Squeaks.”

At a slower pace, she thought she started to recognise the way they were walking. “You seem remarkably unphased by me showing up.”

The Spine shrugged, “We get quite a few robots coming through here. Peter makes them when he gets bored. And some come in from Kazooland.”

Rachel felt a little disappointed. Peter had given her the impression he’d made her specially, not just for a hobby. “There must be hundreds of fanbots.”

“Yep,” The Spine agreed, “although I think you’re the first to turn out human, instead.”

He paused, “You’re not the first to wake me up, though. Not sure why that keeps happening.”

He stopped and carefully plucked something from the wall, “Is this the thread you were looking for?”

It was. “I guess it must’ve snagged when it was reeling in.”

“Tuck your arms in,” he motioned, and wrapped the string a couple of times around her waist. Bending down on one knee, he carefully tied a knot before standing back up. He was stood very close; Rachel barely reached his chest in height. As he stood back, she realised her breath had caught in her throat.

She breathed out slowly, looking down at the string which now extended from her midriff down the hallway, “I should be able to find my way back from here. Thanks for your help, Spine. I’ll come and visit again...probably tomorrow.”

The Spine nodded, “What sort of time? I could meet you with Rabbit and Hatchworth, if you’d like us to show you around?”

Rachel smiled internally. Peter had been happy for her to run rampant about the building, and she wondered whether it was The Spine’s gentlemanly manner or a fear of her wrecking the place that made him extend the offer.

They agreed that the robots would come to find her the following morning, and The Spine strode back towards the Hall of Wires, leaving Rachel to make her way back to her room (as she had come to think of it), leaving her little robot powered down in the corner and taking herself once more away from the morning light of the Manor and back into the evening twilight of home.

 

*****

 

*Mostly showing empty corridors, although one was focused on a single, slowly rotating sombrero.

**One was a small, round vanity mirror. Another was 6 foot tall, and shedding plaster from the back in a manner befitting one which until recently had been happily acquainted with the wall.

 

*****


	6. Fairly long, as it turns out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll probably write some more at some point about other rooms of Walter Manor, but this isn't the time. Let's move along to the day before Rachel's flight, shall we?

Peter was drinking coffee, which meant that it was early, that he was alone, and his mask was hanging from a bedpost nearby.

He sat in bed, hair untidy from sleep, clutching his mug as he swam his way into consciousness. From a clatter somewhere nearby, he suspected that Rachel was around, entertaining the robots.

It had been nearly a week since she had first logged in. She’d been excited, over the moon to have something to keep her occupied. He’d had fun making the robot for her, using up some spare parts he’d accumulated over a few months, and for the first couple of days her visits had been restricted by waves of motion sickness from operating her robot remotely, which was something Peter hadn’t really thought about. He had a brainwave shortly afterwards for how he might be able to fix it, but…

Peter hadn’t meant to monitor Rachel’s presence at the Manor, but the crucial difference between Squeaks and the house robots was her lack of a blue matter core, the others’ main power source. Without it, she was powered by a huge battery in her pelvis*, but that could only last her about 2 days; so he’d connected recording systems to her sensory outlets which downloaded to his computer when she powered down. He didn’t need to look at them, but they would serve as a useful reference if Rachel _did_ get the robot lost and Peter needed to know how to find her. As such, every evening he’d get a short log just confirming how much audio/visual information had just been sent across. And her trips got longer.

He knew she was enjoying herself, and the robots liked her too. They were, they had to admit, getting on in years, and weary of Walter Manor, and it gave them so much joy to see someone new who was still surprised by it all. Hatchworth had grinned ear to ear at the sound she made the first time he pulled a purple kitten from his hatch. They showed her the gardens; the duck pond; Rabbit’s Hall of Faces; the banqueting hall; the drawing rooms; the lizard lounge; the laboratories; the Lounge Room of Last Resorts… It was like having a little child around at Christmas; it made them feel young again. But Peter needed Squeaks dormant in order to make the changes he had planned. He made a special new set of goggles for the purpose, and then waited for the log to come through confirming she’d signed out. Yesterday, it didn’t come at all.

Peter put down his now empty cup of coffee and put his mask back on, swinging his legs out of bed and throwing a labcoat on over his pyjamas, and headed to a nearby lab. He turned on a computer and checked again; nothing. He rubbed the back of his neck. He liked Rachel, she was a nice girl. But she’d been logged in for two days straight. She might not still be logged in at all, it occurred to him. If the robot actually ran out of power, he wouldn’t be sent an update at all. Thinking about it, that was a heck of a flaw in his plan.

He walked out of the lab again, gearing up to search for Rachel in the Manor using the backup plan of following her length of thread. If Squeaks had powered down, it might take a while. In his distracted state, Peter was nearly garrotted by a blue string across his path.

He looked up and groaned. Blue threads filled the corridor, criss-crossing from doorway to doorway. It was like a spiders web, stretching all down the corridor, where maybe fifty arches and doorways branched off. Peter could’ve sworn that two lengths of thread nearby were actually wrapped _around_ one another, which he was sure was physically impossible**. He’d have to go back to the lab where the thread started, and follow it all the way along to her current location. He glared at a nearby knot of threads, which had several different paths tying into it. This could take hours, if not days.

But then as he turned around, he glanced a flash of silver from the corner of his eye. She was in the room next door, staring intently into a mirror. He rolled his eyes, and coughed as he walked into the room. She looked up, but not immediately. After a moment, she waved.

“Hey, Rachel.”

“Hi,” she said faintly. She turned to look back into the mirror, “This mirror’s wrong.”

“No, it’s just not really a mirror.”

“But it’s squishy,” she said, pressing her fingers into it and watching the ripples.

“Don’t do that.”

“And I’m not wearing a boater,” she continued vaguely, waving a hand around her head. In her reflection, she raised the boater and waved it pleasantly.

“Rachel! Have you seen what’s in the corridor?”

She looked up at him, and tilted her head inquisitively. Peter was starting to worry. She didn’t seem altogether there.

She walked out into the corridor, and turned to look. Peter heard her gasp sharply.

“Have you taken any breaks while you’ve been here, Rachel?”

She looked back, and shook her head slowly. “...how long have I been here?”

“Two days. Have you slept? Have you eaten?”

Her zombie-like state made more sense as she shook her head. “Yikes, Rachel! Log out, get some rest! Don’t you fly out here tomorrow?”

“I do.” Her voice was getting smaller.

“Rachel, listen to me. Log out, now. I’ll send you a video chat.”

She looked like she wanted to argue, but just nodded. Exhaustion had taken all the sense from her. She closed her eyes and fiddled with her hands, and Squeaks went limp, her head dropping to her chest. Peter walked past her and back to his desk, where he called her. When her face flashed onto the screen, he nearly swore. Her face was pale and sullen. Her eyes were dark and shadowed, and her hair greasy and untidy.

“You’ve sat in that wheelchair for two days straight.”

“I’m sorry Peter, I didn’t… I didn’t really notice.” She blinked, and nearly fell asleep in the process.

“Rachel, you’re not making any sense right now. Go and eat something. Get some sleep. We’ll see you off the plane in a couple of days, so I’ll talk to you then. Just… get some rest, ok? You look awful.”

She nodded, blearily, “I should help you clear up the string.”

“Don’t worry about that. Sleep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok. One last thing – I’ve made you some new kit, so you don’t need to bring yours with you. See you in a couple of days.”

She ended the call. Peter knew she liked to visit but this wasn’t healthy. He’d have to talk to her when she got to America. Neglecting herself like this could cause some real problems.

He stood up, and picked out a pair of scissors from a drawer under the desk. He walked back into the corridor, looked sadly at the now dormant robot standing against the wall, and began to cut the threads across the corridor, one by one.

 

 

*****

 

 

*Rachel had been amused to hear that the size of her posterior had been useful to him.

**But then this was Walter Manor, so he shrugged it off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, to me the corridor covered with strings feels like a visual parody of someone having a look at your YouTube video history after a particularly bad binge. Watch them disapprove!


	7. A final visit

Rachel’s trip to America did not go quite as Peter had expected. She arrived at the Manor, smiling and happy to truly, really meet everyone. She got to see a different side of the place; as Squeaks, she spent much of her time a few floors up, whereas Rachel in her wheelchair was mostly restricted to the ground floor*. It was nice to see the smile behind her voice. Squeaks’ face was expressionless, but they had grown to understand her meaning from her tone of voice. It was almost strange to see her laugh.

Peter did take her aside and talk to her about her recent extended visit. He was worried about her. She’d just smiled.

“I can handle it,” she’d said. “I just got excited. Now I’ve actually been here… it won’t happen again.”

“Are you sure? You really weren’t healthy by the time I found you.”

“I promise. It won’t happen again.”

From there, Peter presented her with her new control set. It looked very much the same, goggles with gloves and a waistband, all made of brass, but there were more wires linking the various parts, and the goggles were larger. The first time Rachel held them, they were warm to the touch, They felt comforting, somehow.

He watched her put them on, and activate the connection. She sat and flexed her fingers, confusion furrowing her brow.

“I’ve massively reduced the time delay with this pair, which should make things a little easier for you.”

She nodded, “Yes, I can feel that. Did you open a door or something? It suddenly feels colder in here.”

“Nnno. There’s no doors.”

“Right, right. Can I bring her to meet me?”

She sat in her chair and performed a complex set of manoeuvrers with her back, shifting and leaning as she walked Squeaks through the building, a growing look of confusion on her face. Eventually, she tentatively put a hand out to one side, watching it as she stretched out her fingers. Her hand came to a stop in mid-air, stroking whatever it was she’d come into contact with.

“You’ve given her a sense of touch,” she said softly.

“I’ve done what?”

“I’m stroking the wall, Peter. And I can feel it. When I said it was cold earlier that’s because her room was colder. It’s warmer at the end.”

“I have, yes,” Peter blabbered. That was interesting. He certainly hadn’t done that intentionally, but there was no reason to let Rachel in on that.

“You must be a genius, Peter. Scientists have been trying to do this with prosthetics for years. How did you do it?”

He mumbled something about trade secrets and let her continue directing the robot to the room. Shortly she walked it, Squeaks’ benevolent, expressionless face resting eyes on him, before looking down at herself in the wheelchair. Rachel giggled; so did Squeaks. They waved at one another, which gave Rachel the giggles again. Eventually she leaned forward and stretched out a hand, allowing Squeaks to move towards her and touch her face.

“I can feel my own face,” they both said. “This is too surreal.”

“You think that’s surreal,” replied Peter, “You’re both talking to me at once.”

“Well, at least that shows the time delay’s fixed. It’s really nice to meet you, Squeaks.” There came no response, and Rachel smiled to herself. She reached out again and, very carefully, managed to manipulate the robot into standing near to her and wrapping her arms around her, while her arms closed around the robot.

“Get this,” she chuckled, “I can feel me being hugged by a robot, but I can also feel Squeaks being hugged by me. I think I win the surreal competition.”

***

Rachel was curled up in a huge red armchair. The room was dark and quiet, with mahogany walls and a warm fire. The show was done, and she had nothing left to do but entertain herself until she flew back to England.

San Diego was warm anyway, but the flames were comforting. She had sat down with a book to relax and take a break from the madness that was Walter Manor, which wore her out after a while. Rabbit had popped in and chatted with her briefly about the time she’d set the snow on fire, but had rushed off after a few minutes after a clatter upstairs and the cry of “badgers!!”.

So she continued to relax, and let her mind wander. She’d miss the Manor, when she left. She’d spent a few days here, in person, but longer as a robot. She’d felt invincible. After she’d first fallen over in front of The Spine, she realised Squeaks didn’t get hurt. Squeaks wouldn’t break, or bleed. She could run amok and not worry about the man-eating Venus traps or the giant white cat**. When normally she felt little, weak, the prey of the world, Squeaks gave her the power to do whatever she wanted, because nothing could hurt her here.

She realised she’d stopped reading and was stared blankly into the dying fire. As she reached over to the log pile, the sound of heavy footsteps got her attention, and she looked up as The Spine quietly peered around the doorframe. Spotting her, he tipped the brim of his hat and nodded to her, “afternoon, Ma’am.”

“Hello, Spine,” she smiled at him. She felt that he’d warmed to her after their initial encounter. He’d actually got a lot more cordial when she showed up in person; he was a little stiff when she was logged in as Squeaks. She wasn’t totally sure why.

“I hope I’m not interrupting you,” he said cautiously.

“No, I’m just reading. Care to join me?” she threw a log onto the fire and tucked herself back into the chair.

“I’d best not,” The Spine walked into the room, leaving the door open, “and I can’t advise sitting there.”

“It’s OK, I checked the chair. Couldn’t see any teeth or Hell portals.”

“The chair is fine. A priceless antique, actually,” he stepped closer, “but you did just throw a stick of dynamite into the fire.”

Rachel opened her mouth to disagree and looked down.

What happened next seemed to pass in slow motion.

Firstly, she noticed three things about the log which she had put on the fire: it was red; it had a fuse; and the fuse was throwing up sparks.

As a cold terror flooded and froze Rachel’s system, The Spine lunged the last step towards her, swept her up, and propelled himself out of the room, somehow grabbing the door handle and slamming the door as they flew through it. The Spine knelt on the floor and wrapped his body round Rachel as best he could, just as the building buckled under the force of an explosion on the other side of the door.

The Spine uncoiled himself and stood up, carrying Rachel with him, who lay white and wide-eyed in his arms. The hallway was deafeningly quiet, but the explosion had left her ears ringing. Her head swam, and she grasped for something real – her hand clasped wildly, and closed on The Spine’s collar. She realised she was holding her breath, and gasped.

She took a few seconds to get air and normality back, all the while staring at the heavy wooden door.

“Peter doesn’t believe in doors,” she said, finally.

“No, but I convinced him that it may be a good idea to have reinforced doors where there are explosives.”

She looked at him, and green eyes glowed back without a hint of irony.

“And why,” she said slowly, “are there explosives in the log pile?”

“Because Peter realised it was a bad idea to keep them next to the microwave.”

“I see.” This was one of those moments, she realised, where Rachel’s acceptance of The Spine’s argument represented her perhaps overstaying her welcome at Walter Manor ***. She sighed.

“My wheelchair was in there.”

“There are others in the Manor, if you’d like me to get you one.”

“If you wouldn’t mind. Thank you, Spine.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her away to find another wheelchair, as a few stray tendrils of smoke bent their way around the corners of the door.

***

Soon, it was time for Rachel to go back home. Peter saw the taxi pull up outside and knew he ought to find her before she left, and just check one more time that she was going to be alright. But before he could leave the room, she came wheeling in, a large box resting on her lap. She glanced into the corner of the room where Squeaks stood dormant, and smiled sadly.

“You told me not to bring the kit with me,” she told him, passing him the box, “but I did anyway.”

Peter opened it; inside were both the kits, the one he’d sent her a month ago and the one he’d made the other day.

“OK,” he said, puzzled, and passed the box back to her. She didn’t take it.

“I’m giving it back to you,” she said, “I’m not taking the kits home.

“Peter, this has been so much fun. I’m incredibly grateful, but I’ve made this mistake before. I’ve got some kind of addictive personality. If you let me connect to Squeaks again, then I’ll keep doing it. And I’ll do it more and more, for longer times, until maybe I forget to eat and drink for a week.”

“If that’s a problem, I could restrict your visits.”

“No, it wouldn’t help. I’d just obsess about what I _would_ be doing if I _coul_ _d_ be here instead. Because let’s face it, why would I choose being stuck in my dull little world, as the clock ticks and I get older and nothing changes when,” she gestured at the room in general, “ _this_ is the alternative. Running around the Manor, with charming robots and giant pets and endless things to explore and the _amazing_ science you do!”

She wheeled forward and pushed the box in his hands down onto the table, “Promise me, Peter, that you’ll keep doing things like this for other people. Keep making leaps into bizarre science. But never let me contact you again. Don’t answer my messages. Don’t let me talk to you. Don’t tell the others I’ve done this until after I’ve gone, and don’t let them contact me either, And never send these kits back to me, because I’ll end up destroying myself if I can.”

“This all sounds a little drastic.”

“You have no idea.” She reached up, and Peter bent over to give her a parting hug. There was so much hurt in her eyes - Peter had rather got used to Squeaks' amiable smile, no matter what pain she felt.

“Thank you, Peter. I really mean that.”

They walked out to the taxi together, joined by Rabbit, The Spine, Hatchworth, and the others along the way. Rachel smiled at them all, exchanging hugs and laughing. She bundled herself into the car, and it was only then that Peter could see the redness around her eyes. She looked at him, and shrugged, smiling sadly. They all waved, as the taxi took her away into the distance.

  


*****

*author’s note; I believe in American terminology this is better dubbed the ‘first floor’.

**Which was a good thing. Squeaks was not a large robot, ran on wheels and made little squeaking noises as she did so. To Marshmallow, she was like one of those little wind-up mice.

*** She’d had a similar experience from a week in Las Vegas; on her last night there, when she was confronted with an 8-foot inflatable snail with a human face and thought to herself, ‘well that seems reasonable’, she knew it was time to go home.

  


*****  



	8. We carry on

“1, 2, 3...”

“Darn it, Hatchy!”

“...4...”

_Crash_

“Ha! Nice try!”

“C’mon Spine, get off me!” Hatchworth’s voice was slightly muffled, probably because his face was now pressed into the floor. Spine-aroo was a great game*, but The Spine was getting better at throwing him off.

“Only if you promise you’re not gonna jump on me again. I think you scratched something this time.”

“So get it polished!”

“Can you two pipe down?” Peter called, walking past in a dressing-gown** and slippers, “It’s far too early for this kind of noise in the house.”

“It’s nearly midday, Petes.” Hatchworth rolled over via means of a jack he produced from his hatch, knocking The Spine off his back.

“Too early,” Peter nodded.

He left them debating whether or not to take this to the duck pond, and headed to the kitchen. He’d had a lie-in, and had woken up craving a bacon sandwich.

He walked past one of his labs on the way, and stopped as something caught his eye in the room. Rabbit was sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at the Squeaks robot with her head on one side.

It had been several weeks since Rachel’s visit. True to her word, she hadn’t been in touch again, and Peter had kept his promise and hadn’t contacted her. He’d propped Squeaks in the corner of the lab, and then hadn’t really thought much about her since. He supposed he ought to recycle her parts, but didn’t want to, just yet. He never liked disassembling robots. Most other cases where he’d had to were when they needed an intense fix, or when they’d… failed. He tried to think of them as failing, rather than dying, but it didn’t help much. Usually a robot in pieces on a table was bad news either way, and so it always saddened him to do it.

The Spine had asked, a couple of days after she left, when Rachel would be coming back, and Peter had told him honestly that she wouldn’t. He’d looked a little surprised, but didn’t question it further. He just hid his eyes beneath his hat and walked away. Peter wasn’t sure if he’d told the others, but they hadn’t questioned it. They’d only known her for about two weeks, after all.

He walked into the room and leaned against the wall.

“What’re you doing, Rabbit?”

Rabbit turned her head very slightly towards him, and then back to the dormant robot.

“She gets lonely. I’m keepin’ her company.”

Peter looked up at the robot. Her body was slumped quietly, her arms hanging by her sides and her head lolling. Her eyes were dark, but then they always had been; he’d only had time to paint them on. She’d started to gather a fine layer of dust. Peter was sometimes unsure whether to be impressed with Rabbit’s apparent skill of empathy and anthropomorphisation***, or to be worried whether her understanding of alive-or-not was impaired. But he supposed Squeaks was complicated. She had appeared alive; she wasn’t now dead. Just dormant. But then telling a robot that another robot isn’t dead just because they didn’t function tended not to go down well.

“It’s just a costume, Rabbit. It doesn’t get lonely.”

“What an odd thing to say,” Rabbit murmured. She had a slightly far away look in her receptors, when she turned to look at him, “Is Rachel not coming back? Didn’t she like us?”

“She really liked us,” said Peter, “but no, she’s not coming back to see us.”

“But then Squeaks could get real lonely.”

“Rabbit, you know Squeaks is different to you, don’t you? You’re your own person, you control what you say and do. Squeaks wasn’t, it was controlled by Rachel. It didn’t think. There’s nothing to _get_ lonely.”

Rabbit said nothing, but pouted at him. Eventually she got up, and gave Squeaks a brief hug. She walked out past Peter.

“I’m going to get her a hat,” she said sulkily, “it’ll cheer her up.”

Peter looked over at Squeaks uneasily, and gave up and rolled his eyes. He wondered off to the kitchen in search of food, making a mental note to give Rabbit’s gears a quick clean, in case she’d started thinking wonky.

Thinking wonki _er_.

***

Hatchworth plucked the last petal from the daisy in his hand, and dropped the flower on the grass beside him. He was sat on one of the hills behind the Manor, which overlooked the grounds, the boundary marked by the black iron fence in the distance. The grass grew longer here, and he sat, legs outstretched, watching the breeze steal the petals from his fingers. This was a good place to be calm, and to get away from the others if they were annoying him.

He picked another daisy from his hatch, and slowly began plucking the petals. It was some sort of odd little love ritual the humans had, he knew. He pulled a petal; _she loves me._ He pulled another; _she’s transferred her affections elsewhere, apparently_. Another; _she loves me again, and her attention span seems a little short_. One more; _she loves me not, but I’m not sure what this has got to do with daisies._ He wondered who this mystery woman was who was so concerned by how he behaved around flowers. Especially when the number of petals on the common daisy was strongly governed by the Fibonacci sequence, so statistically speaking most objects of affection would end up _loving him not_. The situation was somewhat biased by the type of flower. Hatchworth reached back into his hatch, and pulled out a lily. He looked attentively at the flower, and carefully pulled off the single petal.

 _She loves me._ That was much less complicated, gave him the desired result, and took much less time. Why were humans so inefficient at this sort of thing? They never thought it through.

***

Peter didn’t have a lot to do, over the next week. He gave Rabbit a clean, and so gave the others a quick check up while he was at it, but they were actually functioning just fine. But it occupied a few days. When he wasn’t busy in the labs he tended to get bored like this, which was why he usually kept himself busy in the labs. He didn’t really go out, with his face being as it was. You got a lot of funny looks when you walked around with a keyhole on your face.

Eventually he wandered into a laboratory, and sat down in front of an experiment he’d been meaning to do for a while. He poured two mysterious liquids together in a beaker, and set the resulting goo to stir itself on the bench in front of him, watching the colour slowly change from a murky brown to a soft, glowing purple. There was a voice behind him, which nearly made him jump.

“You shouldn’t sit down in chemistry labs, you know. You could spill something into your lap.”

“Well I will do if you make me jump like that, yes.” He turned around to see Squeaks looking at him from under a fetching pinstripe trilby, “Nice to see you, Rachel, but I thought you said...”

He trailed off, at the realisation that there was a cardboard box on the bench next to him which raised serious questions about what he was seeing.

“Thought I said what?” she said, her head tilted in inquiry.

Peter very carefully lifted the lid of the box, just in case, and checked the contents. All present and correct.

_Ah._

It occurred to him that he probably should’ve thought of this. He should’ve disassembled the robot. Because now, things were going to get a little complicated.

“You don’t remember?” He said casually, trying to distract her while he thought of how to explain himself.

“No, not really. In fact I don’t… remember much.”

She looked a little confused.

“I’d expect that you don’t remember anything that’s happened since you last logged in here,” he said slowly.

She stared at him. There was silence as she realised there were holes in what she could remember, and her eyes widened.

“Peter… what’s going on? I feel very strange.”

Peter lifted the lid of the cardboard box fully, and pulled out the two pairs of goggles which were inside.

“Do you recognise these?” he said, walking over to hand them to the robot. She took them from him, and nodded.

“Yes, these are… to… connect...” Realisation dawned, little by little, “Peter, these are my goggles to connect to Squeaks. If they’re here then how am I connecting?”

“Well, I have two theories,” Peter said, taking the goggles back gently and putting them back in the box, “either you got very good at hacking software, or there’s something else going on. And I can settle that if you’ll give me a moment to check something.”

“Then check.”

“I’ll need to open up the panelling on ...uh… Squeaks’ back.”

She gestured for him to continue, rubbing her arm anxiously. Peter walked around behind her and lifted her shirt a little, allowing him access to the small panel in her lower back. By a series of hidden panels, carefully coded buttons and subtle switches, he opened a little door he’d designed very carefully to self-destruct unless you knew the proper route. This was the sort of thing people really shouldn’t get their hands on. Inside, a little light glowed, connected to 3 thick wires.

If Rachel had got clever with technology, what he was about to do would have little effect. If his other theory was correct, then…

He disconnected the first two wires with no effect. The robot in front of him looked at her arms, growing increasingly distressed, as he pulled the final wire, “Peter, there’s dust all -”

She slumped over.

He looked at the rest of her controls. Her battery still had power. He could hear her cooling fans whirring.

It was the other theory, then.

He reattached the first wire and the robot stood bolt upright, and gasped as if she’d been submerged in water. She spun round and grabbed Peter by the arms, her eyes wide and terrified.

“What the hell did you just do?!” She cried.  She’d begun to shake, now.

“I unplugged something! And if you’re not careful you’ll knock it lose again! Let me finish with it and then we can talk properly!”

She spun round reluctantly, and Peter carefully set about closing and resetting all the panels. She’d started to shake alarmingly. “What just happened to you?” he said.

“Everything went black.” she whispered. “I tried to say something, but I couldn’t. It felt like I was suffocating, Peter.”

“I’m sorry,” he said honestly, and closed the top panel, pulling her shirt back down over it, “I won’t let it happen again. I didn’t know it would do that to you.”

“You’re avoiding my questions, Peter. What did you do? What is going on here?”

“Uh.”

“You clearly know, so tell me. What did you unplug?”

Peter walked around her and attempted to look her in the eyes; at least, he hoped she knew that he did.

“I unplugged your core.”

She didn’t answer for a long time. She just returned his stare.

“Squeaks doesn’t have a core,” she finally answered.

“I put one in a few weeks ago. Do you remember when you started to be able to touch?”

“Yes. That was weeks ago?”

“Yes. It was.”

She still didn’t understand. Peter groaned.

“OK, let me start again. Let’s say I’ve got this friend, who goes and gets her legs broken 3 weeks before she’s due to fly to America.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything.

“So say I make her a robot so she can explore the Manor, but the time delay gives her motion-sickness. So when she leaves the robot for long enough that I can actually fix it, I implement an absolutely genius system which involves installing a blue matter core in the robot.”

“What absolutely genius system?”

“I’ll come back to that, it’ll take a little longer to explain. So I install a core, and then the friend comes to America, gives me back the kits to log into the robot, and tells me she won’t be coming back.”

“I never said-”

“-then suppose I leave the robot plugged into her blue matter core by mistake and one day she becomes sentient and starts telling me off for health and safety.”

There was a long pause, the sound of the stirring purple liquid permeating through the quiet.

“That can’t be true,” her voice was small and shaking. Her eyes shined over with oily tears.

“I think it can,” Peter replied gently.

“You’re trying to tell me that I _am_ Squeaks?” said Squeaks.

 

*****

 

*Somewhere between Buckaroo and a thumb war, it involved clinging on to The Spine’s spines (before he could object), and managing to stay on for 5 seconds. Hatchworth’s current record was 4.35846284 seconds.

**A 'Bath robe', American reader?

***Not to be said after a pint.

 

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Futurama 'All my circuits' dramatic organ music*
> 
> I feel for such a short section this took a long time to get through! Life tends to get in the way, you see.
> 
> If you're left unsure, yes Squeaks is now an existing entity on her own. I have a lot more I want to explore via her, but I'm planning to start this in a separate block for easier reading; the story continues in Beyond the Blue Horizon. I suspect not everyone will be interested in Rachel's story. I'll continue on that one where I can! For now thanks for reading, it's lovely to have you coming along with me :)


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